L. Modesitt - Magi'i of Cyador

“Be careful who sees that.” She frowns.

“I am. You’re the only one who knows.”

A trace of another frown crosses her brow before she speaks. “Best it remain that way, my very dear lancer.” She half sits up, pulling the coverlet around her. “You didn’t read me a poem. One from the book. You brought it, didn’t you? You know it was really my first present to you?”

He smiles, thankful he can. “It’s in my bag. You want me to read one now?”

“One … we’re waiting for the stove to warm things up.”

Lorn eases out of the bed a second time, extracts the silver-covered volume from the bag, and then extends it to her. “You read one. Your favorite.” He slips back under the covers.

“Tonight, you have to read me one.”

“I will.”

She leafs through the book, then stops, nodding. After a moment she reads.

Like a dusk without a cloud,

a leaf without a tree,

a shell without a sea …

the greening of the pear

slips by …

Lorn smiles gently to himself as she finishes the verses.

… and wait for pears and praise

… and wait for pears and praise.

“I like that one, too,” he says, leaning next to her and kissing her cheek. After a moment, he takes the book and gently closes the cover.

Her fingertips hold him at bay. “You promised we could take a ride.”

“Do you really want to ride around Jakaafra?”

Ryalth nods. “People should see us, and the air will feel good.”

“And?”

“I might get some more ideas. I think I know where I can sell that amber melon ice wine, if it will travel.”

“Always the trader?”

“Not always.” She kisses his cheek again. “Not always.”

LORN COCKS HIS head to the side, then looks down at the draft of the scroll he writes on the table that serves for eating and writing and anything else in the small dwelling. He glances toward the glassed panes of the window whose inner shutters he has opened to get more light. Outside the warmth of the dwelling, a light but cold wind blows through a gray mid-morning.

When he had saddled both mounts earlier, Lorn had been glad for his winter jacket. From the table, warmed by the ceramic stove, he studies the sky once more. The clouds are high, and still do not look to bring rain or snow, or not soon.

He dips the pen again and adds a sentence to the draft of the scroll before him, then pauses before crossing out several words and penning in changes to the side.

“You are busy this morning,” Ryalth observes as she emerges from the bedchamber, wearing working merchanter blues. She walks over to Lorn, and bends down and kisses the back of his neck.

“Are you ready?” he asks, replacing the pen in its holder and looking up at her.

“As ready as you, my dear lancer.” She smiles warmly. “You do not mind accompanying me on merchanter business?”

“Not at all.”

“Even after yesterday?”

Lorn laughs. They had ridden nearly ten kays to a hamlet where a smith supposedly forged unique iron implements, only to find that their uniqueness was only in their size and crudeness. Then they had talked to a pearapple grower whose fruit was renowned in the region, but Ryalth had decided even from the dried and winter stored samples that the fruit would remain a local delicacy because it bruised too easily. Most of the day had been like that.

“It is just that I seldom get this far east and north ….” She shakes her head. “I would never get this far were it not for you.” She sets a blue leather wallet on the edge of the table, and there is the dull clink of coins. While Lorn has seen it before, he had never looked that closely, thinking it a trader’s wallet, and little more. This time, he sees, embossed on the leather, a green emblem-the intertwined letters “R” and “L” set within an inverted triangle.

Lorn studies the emblem, his lips curling into a smile.

“That’s the symbol I’ve been using from the beginning,” she explains.

“You never showed me.”

“You never asked.”

Lorn shakes his head. “I can’t ask what I don’t know about.”

“Neither can I.” She laughs. “Someone I love taught me that a long time ago.”

They both laugh.

“What do you think of this?” Lorn hands her the scroll he has written. He stands and looks over Ryalth’s shoulder as she reads through his revised and crossed out words.

… Father had written some time back that, after discussing possible consorts with Jerial, he had decided that the lady I have spent so much time withover the years is most suitable. Because that was also my inclination, and because she is my love, and because it appears likely that I will not be returned to Cyad at any time in the years immediately before me, she traveled to Jakaafra, where we were consorted.

I know this was not exactly as we all had hoped for the placement and timing of such an event, but you all know how unwise making such a union public in Cyad would be at this time. Mother has also told me that she views the lady as most lovely.

Ryalth looks up. “You didn’t tell me that.”

“I didn’t? I thought I did.”

She shakes her head ruefully. “Lorn … my dearest lancer, there are times when I can almost see that there are thoughts running through your mind, and you look as though you ought to be talking, and I think you are hearing all the words you would speak. Then, I think you sometimes feel you have spoken them.”

“I will try to be better with you,” he says slowly.

“Do not fret about it. That is the way you are.”

“Sometimes I dwell in my thoughts and words too much.” He glances from the redhead to the scroll. “What do you think?”

“Do you think they’ll be too terribly upset?”

“I don’t think so. Did you know that mother told me not to spend too much time with them when I was in Cyad? She said to spend it with ‘my friend.’”

“I hope they won’t be too upset.”

“They won’t be. They want us to be happy.”

“People say that,” she points out, “until someone else’s happiness upsets them. I still worry about upsetting your parents.”

“If you’d rather I not tell them ….”

“You have to … I understand that. All may be as you say. But I worry. So do you, or you would not take such care indrafting your scroll.” The redhead looks toward the door. “It’s colder out, isn’t it?”

Lorn nods.

“It won’t get warmer while we wait.”

He smiles as he takes the draft scroll from her and sets it on the table. Then he takes the sabre from where he has set it in the corner and attaches the scabbard to his uniform belt. Then he dons the white leather winter jacket and his winter riding gloves.

Ryalth wears a wool-lined blue leather vest over her tunic, and then a heavy dark blue woolen cloak. Her gloves are also dark blue.

“I’ve already saddled them.”

They walk the fifty cubits to the stable together. Lorn leads out the chestnut first, then the white gelding, closing the stable door and then mounting.

The raw and damp wind blows in their face out of the northwest as they ride toward the square; and the smells that had hinted at coming spring in the days immediately after their consorting have vanished with the return of winter. Neither speaks as their mounts carry them the kay into the center of Jakaafra.

Eileyt and Usylt, the trade guard, are standing under the narrow porch of Dustyn’s establishment as Lorn and Ryalth ride down the lane from the square. As Lorn and Ryalth rein up, the two men hurry down from the porch to untie their horses and mount.

“We’re only going across the square,” Ryalth says, “to the cuprite master’s shop.”